


Not a Dream

by Ane_Rhapsodos



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Confused Genesis, Gen, More tags later, Mystery, timetravel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ane_Rhapsodos/pseuds/Ane_Rhapsodos
Summary: Rewrite of my incomplete work posted on Fanfiction.net a few years ago.When Deepground went to collect Genesis - someone else got there first.





	Not a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not a Dream: Behind Blue Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/480448) by LadyoftheDrow. 



> There are elements of the original version I will be using, but I am aiming to use as much fresh content as possible to revive this piece. It was a lot of fun before and I want to go back to having fun writing it now that I've had time to grow and improve.

He was finally free...

 

His faith in his goddess' existence had borne fruit after all these years - it was Her that had finally cleansed him of the pain he had been suffering for years. Perhaps if he had trusted in her from the start he would not have lost Angeal to Hollander's machinations. Never lost Sephiroth to the madness he had not expected to find in Nibelheim. Genesis couldn't blame her for turning her face away from him - refusing him entry to the peace the Lifestream held - he did not  _ deserve _ such a bounty. He only hoped she had accepted Angeal into her arms when he could no longer take the suffering any longer.

 

Footsteps... he could hear footsteps. Light, too light to be Fair returning for him, the Buster Sword was far too great a weight. No... this was someone else. Forcing his eyes open a sliver, he could make out slim legs clad in black leather. Who... was this...? Consciousness faded quickly, brought back with a jolt as his head hit the solid metal of a pauldron. Groaning, he opened his eyes again, getting a flash of more black leather and a fall of silver hair. Sephiroth...? He couldn't be here... the man was five years dead... No - something wasn't quite right...

 

Someone was yelling. Machinery rumbling too loud for him to hear them. The gunfire though... that was unmistakable. The screaming whistle through the air, warm droplets of blood splattering across his face, the pained cry so close to his ear. He was jolted as the man carrying him -  _ was it really Sephiroth?  _ \- fell briefly to one knee and took a deep breath.

 

Everything was suddenly both scalding hot and glacial at once, void of all sound but his own heartbeat in his ears -  _ Why couldn’t he breathe? _

  
  


Genesis shifted as he woke, brow furrowing at the irritation of seams that felt too-rough against his skin. He’d long tuned out such sensation, aware for so long only of the numbness and deep aching pain of his cells necrotizing from the degradation. He felt disgusting... granules of something he couldn’t identify clinging to his skin. Goddess, he needed a shower  _ desperately _ .

 

Reaching up, he scratched at a patch of something on his cheek, shuddering unconsciously with the desire to get clean and trying to find the energy to move. Rolling onto his side alone took an exhausting amount of energy, a faintly familiar floral scent reaching his nose as he disturbed blissfully soft bedding. Roses.... How strange it was to actually be able to smell anything, let alone that; it reminded him of home, of the scent sachets his adoptive mother would mail him to keep pests out of his closet.

 

Slowly opening his eyes is gaze trailed over the cheaply painted walls, a shade of nondescript tan rather than the combination of wood panelling and wallpaper his adoptive parents had favored. No... not home then... that old manor had long been bombed into pieces. All of Banora... destroyed... wiped away like a clerical error.

 

He groaned hearing someone knocking on a door, turning his face further against the soft pillow. No... whoever it was could wait. They knocked once more before he heard the beep of a key card and a door opening, frowning to himself. A keycard? No stranger’s home should be using a keycard... was he in a hospital? The warning rap of knuckles on the doorframe of the room had him finally opening his eyes. This... this was too familiar.

 

“You’re going to be late, Genesis...” a painfully familiar voice stated dryly. “What in Gaea’s name were you up to last night to still be in bed?” Genesis was frozen in place, afraid to turn his head. No... no, he was  _ dead _ he couldn’t be here.

 

“I...” He closed his eyes as he heard the man coming around to his side of the bed, no, this had to be some dream. Angeal was  **_dead_ ** . He’d seen his body for himself before the Lifestream claimed it! “Nothing, just tired.”

 

“You certainly  _ look _ tired,” the voice of his childhood friend turned concerned and he felt a familiar callused hand run over his forehead. “Well you don’t have a fever... doesn’t mean you’re not sick.”

 

This couldn’t be real... had the goddess actually accepted him and this was some conjuration of his soul’s consciousness? An illusion of how life had been before, the chance to see Angeal again. “... I’m fine, Angeal.” His voice very nearly cracked on the name, and feeling the gentle touch on his arm he finally dared to look again. Seeing that familiar frown of concern he couldn’t let them close again, watching those slate eyes he’d thought he’d never see again looking him over searching for some type of sign.

 

“Get some rest,” Angeal finally said softly, straightening back up.

 

What? “What about....?” He didn’t know what he was supposed to be late for, but if this... if this was the lifestream did it really matter? The dead were absolved of all commitments. Why would his mind conjure up something like this?

 

"I'll take care of it, you just... take it easy." He watched as Angeal's eyes flicked towards his left shoulder, "I'll stop by later, alright?”

 

“I...” What could he say to that? He didn’t dare ask the man for help getting to the shower, he’d insist on helping him wash up and that would be simply mortifying... No... maybe rest was a good idea. Sleeping sounded so tempting, the bed was comfortable and he was exhausted. Maybe this would all make more sense once he’d had time to rest. The sheer  _ impossibility _ of this whole situation. Angeal was supposed to be dead.  _ Sephiroth  _ was supposed to be dead... this room looked so much like his long-destroyed apartment at Shin-Ra. The man standing in front of him looked like Angeal,  _ sounded  _ like Angeal.  **Hell** ... the man even  _ smelt  _ like his childhood friend and he’d gone years without the ability to smell anything!

 

This whole scenario was giving the Ex-Commander the strongest sensation of déjà vu... something about it was achingly familiar. As if they had said these lines once before... word for word. Of laying in bed so tired, weak, and aching.... Angeal’s worried touch and gaze... no matter what this was though, he refused to be ungrateful for the worry of the friend he had wronged so badly.

 

“... Thank you, Angeal.”

 

That soft fond smile was worth it, he thought to himself with a small satisfied smile of his own. He could cope with the surprised look as long as the man looked that pleased. Good... good, now maybe he could rest again.  _ Escape _ .

 

Yet Angeal was still here, still had more to say. "I'll be back in a few hours." Angeal nodded resolutely, concern flickering over his face again as he finally moved for the door.

 

"I'll be fine." Genesis chuckled softly as he let his eyes finally close again. "Don't worry."

 

"I'll hold you to that," the taller man said with amusing solemnity, and then he could hear the door being pulled shut. Genesis just lay there for several moments, listening to the larger man move through the apartment and close the far door behind him.

 

The man had acted so normal, so... himself. He’d been so desperate for a cure himself that he hadn’t even realized how bad off Angeal had become mentally until it was much too late. Seen just how self-destructive the ability his cells granted was. He’d gone so rapidly from looking perfectly healthy, to looking like an old man in the course of only minutes. Whatever this was now... he did not want to lose his brother again. Even... even if this was just a hallucination his mind had conjured up.

 

Shaking his head he pushed himself upright,his head swimming at the change from horizontal to vertical threatening to send him right back down. He couldn’t sleep, not in these clothes. A shower... that would clear his head enough to get more rest. Maybe this would finally start to make sense. Thing fingers dug into the knit shirt, pulling it up and grimacing at the sound of the old fabric tearing.Throwing it at the floor in disgust he shook his head, the cool air on his skin helping to clear his head.

 

A heap of leather was on the floor by his feet, familiar crimson and the black straps of his harness. What...? Brow furrowing in confusion he slowly stood and knelt down next to it, the leather didn’t match the illusion that seemed to surround him. It was damaged and faded, cracks showing where he’d tried to mend the once-living material with magic. This... this was what he’d worn fighting Zack in the cavern. Blood covered much of it, he didn’t know how Angeal had missed it being only feet away. A touch though confirmed the blood was dry, almost the same shade now as the dyed leather was.

 

_ Black leather and silver hair... blood that wasn’t his hitting his face. _

 

Genesis blinked, slowly reaching up to touch the crusty sensation on his cheek and next. That… couldn’t be. Stumbling into the bathroom he froze at his reflection. He looked...  _ himself _ again. The Goddess truly had healed him? Hair was once more rich with color, the marks that had covered his skin had smoothed over and the pallor he had been unable to be rid of... It was like looking back in time. It had been so long since the degradation first took hold... And there was the dried blood on his skin, most of it fallen away already, but the color... he couldn’t mistake that color. Not his though... he hadn’t been the one shot that had been  _ Sephiroth _ ...

 

Sephiroth who was supposed to be just as dead as Angeal, but Angeal was here.... Had Sephiroth come to get him despite his last words? Escorted him into death.... Forgiven him for his part in everything that had happened?

 

No, he had no reason to... none of this made sense! If this was the Lifestream why did everything feel so real? The blood from whoever it was Sephiroth or another that had carried him. His uniform that had become so damaged from years without replacement. This apartment... and Angeal... He could even smell that faint acrid note in the air from the mako reactors that powered the city. A scent you could not mistake for anything else.

 

Could... could this actually be Midgar? If it was - what did it  _ mean _ ? To be back here cured of the degradation - _ Angeal alive  _ \- was just the sort of thing he could imagine his mind conjuring up. Yet... he wouldn’t have chosen Midgar, not ShinRa - the  _ very source  _ of everything that had gone wrong in their lives. No, he would’ve chosen  _ Banora  _ their childhood home.

 

To be back before everything went wrong...

  
_ Goddess  _ his head hurt...


End file.
